Sleeping with the enemy

A $5, hour and a half massage to end the day can be addicting. Ian wanted me to experience all the variations: facial massage, feet massage, Thai massage, full body Chinese massage with acupuncture points, Hong Kong massage and others. We were in Dunhuang, a tourist city of Buddhist’s caves. We began our usual afternoon hunt, but this time promising Zohar, our new Israeli traveling companion, that she might enjoy a foot massage as an intro. We assured her that Chinese massage never requires removing anything more than shoes.

Each establishment we entered on the busy market street presented several smiling young women as we walked in the door. The pricing was strange, however. Ten US dollars for 45 minutes, or in other words, more money for less time seemed unreasonable. We kept shopping, speculating that this was a tourist town for the Chinese as well, so higher prices could be expected.

Finally a lower rate appeared, even if it was in a little more worn down building. A woman who did feet was telephoned for Zohar. Ian and I followed two young women up dirty outdoor steps to a locked door on an upper floor. Several former places we had been to looked equally worn and wizzled, but we had received excellent massages, so we were not put off. Ian and the first woman went through a curtain to the left, and I followed the other a little further and entered a room on the right.

For the first time I could see my health care professional; she was very young, wore a mid-drift exposing top and cut her bangs in a strong angle, which hid her pretty eyes. She motioned to me to lie on an usually large bed, which was hard as a table, topped with a blanket.

In a few minutes of preliminary shoulder rubs she asked a question in Mandarin. In my Pimsleur Chinese I responded that I didn’t speak the language. I remembered Ian saying that they usually ask if the pressure is too hard or too soft, so I just nodded and said “harder.” I bumbled a little more and she laughed a few more times and then continued. I heard Ian chattering away and briefly thought to call to him for clarification, but decided not to.

After 10 minutes of amateurish pounding, whacking and rubbing my knee caps endlessly, I concluded that I wasn’t going to get my money’s worth. I could hear the same sound like an imitation galloping horse from Ian’s room, so I knew he wasn’t doing any better. Several times she stopped, waited until I opened my eyes, then sighed in a feigned fatigue … with exaggeration. What did that mean?

After another 40 minutes and repeatedly asking me some question that I didn’t understand she said. “OK, finished.” I opened my eyes and looked over her shoulder and saw for the first time the room’s only attempt at decoration: a small poster of a naked couple.

I continued to hear Ian’s reassuring booming chatter down the hall as I hurriedly put on my shoes. As I walked in his room saying, “Ian, I don’t think this is a massage business,” he interrupted, saying, “They’re prostitutes and I have a lot of good anthropology type stuff for you.” He had understood her question, “Do you want the special?” and in his disarming way continued on with his conversation saying, “No, I’ve got a girlfriend, but tell me about your life as a …”

I turned to the young girl peering out from her angled bangs. With a beaming smile she reached over and pinched me between the legs and grabbed my hand and tried to pull me back into our previous room. I gave her a bored smile and shook my head to say no. As we walked out, she failed in her attempts to jump on Ian’s back to piggy-back ride, then grabbed my shoulders as I descended the stair case. We needed to check on Zohar. What had they done to her?

We found Zohar sitting with her feet in a bucket of soapy water and an older woman continuing with a massage. Ian and I paid the disappointed young women and we sat down to wait when he turned to me and said, “They always use condoms.”

I shifted gears. Ian continued, “They are both 18 years old and have been doing this for a month. All the massage businesses in this town are staffed by prostitutes. Their price was about 35 US dollars for sex …” with discounts for other alternatives that I’ll leave to the reader’s imagination.

You might have a few questions at this point. Was I concerned for my safety? No, never. Was I in the least bit tempted? No, even if I wasn’t happily married, there was nothing even sensual about it. I guess Chinese men like it raw.

Finally Zohar came out saying, “I’ve had better foot massages, but I’ve had worse.”

As we left Ian added, “Oh, one more thing, her boyfriend doesn’t know.”